Okay, let’s get a little personal here. How often do you shave your legs? What about your arms? What your pits? What about your chin? I think it’s safe to say that women aren’t as smooth and hairless as men like to believe. We develop hair in places that men didn’t even think we could. But because society expects women to be naked mole rats, for the most part, many of us make it a point to keep our body hair in check. As long and painful as the process may be. But what about facial hair? Well as taboo as it may seem, female facial hair is way more common that you think.
“We Can Face It” is a health awareness campaign that is trying to break the stigma around facial hair. Apparently 40 percent of women have some degree of unwanted facial hair. Different factors can be the cause of it, some being health conditions, others may simply be genetics. There are women who experience an increase in hair on their face and chest during pregnancy as their hormones go out of control.
But now, a new trend is happening. More and more women are actually embracing their facial hair and they are actually getting some pretty awesome responses. Meet Harnaam Kaur. She’s not only a model, Instagram sensation and life coach but she’s also one girl that is leading this movement. Now 27, Harnaam noticed that she had hair growing on her face, arms, and chest when she was 11. She was later diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, causing women to develop excess levels of male hormones.
She was really bullied at school and started to wax and shave all the hair on her face and body. She eventually couldn’t handle it and started turning to self-harm. At 16, she became Sikh, which is a religion that forbids cutting body hair. So she had to grow it all out. Even though she isn’t Sikh anymore, she has kept her facial hair and believes that women need more acceptance for their bodies. She noted on her Instagram: “Right now, we need rights to be a woman”. In 2016, Kaur got the Guinness World Record for being the youngest female with a full beard. She hopes that this will inspire other women to be confident in who they are.
Joining Kaur in this powerful movement is Rose Geil from Oregon. She notes that her decision to grow her own beard has actually made her feel sexier and more feminine than ever. In the YouTube video of Geil that you can check out below, she notes “I definitely feel feminine since I’ve grown my beard and it has very little to do with physical appearance it’s all about my attitude giving myself the freedom to be exactly who I am, because of that I definitely feel womanly, I feel sexy.”
Rose has been dealing with shaving, plucking and investing a ton of money on laser procedure for 20 years. She eventually took the brave step of going natural! It’s been something that she’s been considering for quite some time now. According to Rose, social media showed her other bearded women that she met and gave her the confidence to leave the facial hair and accept herself for who she is.
She was pretty surprised at the amount of acceptance and inspiration she got from friends and family. Going out in public, she does admit that people do occasionally mistake her for a sir. But for the most part, she has people coming up to her and praising her for her confidence and accepting herself. She truly is inspirational. Check out the video of Rose down below to get a deeper look into her story!
